European Stars and Stripes (Newspaper) - November 08, 1993, Darmstadt, Hesse                                Young modern Day vietnamese cruise the Street of to pm Minn Gay aboard motorbikes on a weekend night. Veterans on cruise liners make up Vietnam s latest wave of boat people by Hugh a. Mulligan the associated press rom the first flush of Dawn All the Way up the winding 45-mile Long Saigon River the returning americans hugged the ship s rail with cameras and binoculars wondering what sort of reception awaited them. They had been gone from Vietnam for 20 years some More than 30. People who be never been Here think this is an ugly country but we remember How Beautiful it was and the High Hopes we had for it mused George Gray looking off at a Fleet of Straw roofed fishing boats moored along the Palmetto and Bamboo fringed Banks. A civil Engineer from san Diego Cray arrived in Vietnam in 1958 on an american Aid project to design and help build 600 Miles of Highway. Now he was part of Vietnam s latest wave of boat people americans coming Back As passengers on one of less than a half dozen cruise liners that have begun calling. Four arms four arms capt. Pierre celery announced from the Bridge As the 12,500-ton Ocean Pearl negotiated the narrow meeting Point of two Huddy tributaries. Here in wartime dozens of ammunition and Supply ships had been damaged and set afire and some sunk by rockets and mortars from sapper squads lurking in the thickets along the Banks. An hour later the red tiled rooftops of what was once called the Paris of the Orient loomed around the last Bend. Billboards advertising Seiko Sony Toshiba Konica Kenwood etc., promised a Prosperity belied by the tin Vietnam about Hie series associated press staff writer Hugh Mulligan spent four wartime years in Vietnam and Cambodia. He recently returned with a shipload of other american tourists Many of them former military officers after a 20-year absence. Here is the first of his two reports. Roofed shanties along the docks the old women in conical hats shuffling along with huge loads in baskets balanced across their shoulders on a Bamboo pole and the Long line of waiting pedicab. At the foot of the gangplank Willowy Young girls wearing the traditional to dais a form hugging silk tunic Over nearly transparent pyjamas held aloft a Banner in both French and English welcoming the Ocean Pearl s 470 passengers. Everywhere they went the returning americans were greeted with cries of Numbat one from Small children whose knowledge of English amazed them. They were welcomed Back by hordes of newspaper vendors and Shoeshine boys fat women smiling at sidewalk soup stalls and merchants anxious to Trade finest Quality Only lacquer Wear elephant skin attache cases toy helicopters Cut from Beer cans and silk ties with a water Buffalo Motif for Greenback dollars. Brand new yellow taxicabs joined the Roar of motorbikes along the tree lined boulevards of to Chi Minn City which everyone still called Saigon despite to s larger than life statue in front of the Gingerbread French built City Hail. Hanoi trained police in dark Green continued on Page 24 Short Subjec Spain s civil guard now protects bears by Michael a Phillips the associated press yet another wonder of a changing world those Gram visage men in Black Patent leather hat3, who struck fear into generations of spaniards have volunteered to protect the bears. The Pride of the civil guard Barracks in pvt Edo Spain is a photo on the squad room Wall of four booted troopers astride their motorcycles pistols at their sides cuddling two Bear cubs. This is the same paramilitary police Force that began patrolling towns and roadways in 1844, stomping out threats to privilege and property that fought brutally for Francisco Franco in the civil War of 1936-39 that tried to crush the new Spanish democracy Only 12 years ago. And this is the same province Asturias in the mountainous North where coat miners battled the civil guard during the War and have had Many run ins with it since. Now the civil guards have teamed up with ecologists. They enforce environmental Laws testing Rivers for toxic spills battling Forest fires and Rescue orphaned Bear cubs. They be had this history of being a brutal military police said Tony Clevenger an american wildlife biologist studying Spain s tiny population of european Brown bears. Then suddenly they re protecting the environment monitoring water Quality tracking Down poachers. They be gotten a lot out of  perhaps nowhere is this truer than in Asturias a Region of Lush valleys and moribund Coal mines where the cant Abrian mountains shelter most of the 70 or 80 Brown bears that survive in Spain. In towns around the provincial capital of Oviedo miners remember being on the wrong end of civil guard Billy dubs during strikes. Fifteen years ago if a civil guard had walked into this bar for a cup of Coffee everybody would have stopped talking Pedro Urena 42, said in the town of Sama de Langreo. Changing politics brought new More pleasant duties. In 1988, seven years after it col. Antonio Tejero and 100 comrades held parliament at gunpoint in a coup that failed the civil guard established the nature Protection service environmental police like those in Germany and Italy. If s been wonderful for the civil  said Gerardo Crespo a 28-Ye a old trooper who conducts environmental investigations from the Oviedo Barracks. If just what we needed a boost to our image using off the Road motorcycles and All terrain vehicles they roam the Countryside investigating everything from Industrial waste dumps to poaching and noise pollution. Members of the Force argue that their reputation was always been worse than deserved that Tejero and his followers were renegades. Plus like Crespo Many who Volunteer for the nature Protection service were children when Franco died. The Lander gentler i guard. Monday no mar 8,1993 thi stars and stapes